As for the wheat problem, it is not at all likely that the Roman
Catholic Mission would put up a flour mill, as they were then doing,
if it was not a wheat country. Bishop Cl?»t assured me that potatoes
in their garden reached three and a half pounds' weight in some
instances, and turnips twenty-five pounds.
The kind people of both this and the Church of England Mission
generously supplied our table with vegetables and salads, and we
craved no better. Chives, lettuce, radishes, cress and onions
were full flavoured, fresh and delicious, and quite as early
as in Manitoba. Being a timber country, lumber was, of course,
plentiful, there being two sawmills at work cutting lumber,
which sold, undressed, at $25 to $30 a thousand.
The whole country has a fresh and attractive look, and one could
not desire a finer location than can be had almost anywhere
along its streams and within its delightful and healthy borders.
And yet this region is but a portal to the vaster one beyond, to
the Unjigah, the mighty Peace River, to be described hereafter.
The make-weight against settlement may be almost summed up in the
words transport and markets. The country is there, and far beyond
it, too; but so long as there is abundance of prairie land to the
south, and no railway facilities, it would be unwise for any large
body of settlers, especially with limited means, to venture so far.
The small local demand for beef and grain might soon be overtaken,
and though stock can be driven, yet three hundred miles of forest
trail is a long way to drive.
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